World of Warcraft to go offline in China, leaving millions of gamers bereft

Popular role-playing game is being cut off due to a dispute between US developer and its Chinese partner

Millions of Chinese players of the roleplaying epic World of Warcraft (WoW) will bid a sad farewell to the land of Azeroth, with the game set to go offline after a dispute between the US developer Blizzard and its local partner NetEase.

Massively popular worldwide, particularly in the 2000s, WoW is an online multiplayer role-playing game set in a fantasy medieval world. It is known for being immersive and addictive, and players can rack up hundreds of hours of game time.

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Eight in 10 people in China caught Covid since early December, say officials

Reported death toll surges to 72,000 after zero-Covid restrictions lifted; some experts estimate 1m deaths

About 80% of China’s population has been infected with Covid-19 since restrictions were lifted in early December, Chinese health authorities have said.

The figure, which would equate to about 1.2 billion people but cannot be confirmed by outside bodies, prompted some pandemic experts to estimate that more than 1 million may have died – far more than the government’s official tally of about 72,000.

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Brazil’s female diplomats in new equality push after dark days of Bolsonaro

Movement to tackle lack of diversity within Brazil’s foreign office coincides with Lula’s return to power

More than a century after Maria José de Castro Rebello Mendes became, in 1918, the first woman to enter Brazil’s diplomatic service, the country’s female diplomats have launched a new push for equal rights and opportunity. Women make up less than 25% of Brazil’s diplomatic corps and just 12% of ambassadors.

“We are blossoming at this moment of democratic government,” said Irene Vida Gala, a senior diplomat who served as ambassador to Ghana and is now the president of the newly created Association of Female Brazilian Diplomats.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Germany ‘not blocking export of Leopard tanks’, says EU foreign policy chief – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. You can find our latest report here

Russian secret service the SVR has claimed that Ukraine is storing weapons and ammunition supplied by the west on the territory of nuclear power plants, reports Tass.

The Russian-owned news agency reports that the SVR says, without citing any evidence, that this is been done in the expectation that Russia would not target them, due to the risk of a nuclear accident.

This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. I will be with you for the next few hours.

It is a question of justice and fairness,” the FT quoted Michel as saying in an interview. “It must be done in line with legal principles – this is very clear.”

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Tens of millions without power in Pakistan as national grid fails

Energy minister says outage was caused by voltage surge in south of grid

Pakistan’s national grid suffered a major breakdown, leaving millions of people without electricity for the second time in three months and highlighting the infrastructural weakness of the heavily indebted nation.

The energy minister, Khurram Dastgir, said the outage on Monday was caused by a large voltage surge in the south of the grid, which affected the entire network.

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India invokes emergency laws to ban BBC Modi documentary

Government accused of ‘censorship’ over ban on film about PM’s role in violence during 2002 Gujarat riots

The Indian government has invoked emergency laws to block a BBC documentary examining the role of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, during riots in the western state of Gujarat in 2002.

Controversy has erupted in India over the first episode of the two-part programme, India: The Modi Question, which tracked his rise through the ranks of the Bharatiya Janata party and his appointment as chief minister of Gujarat.

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Japan PM aide told off by his ‘ashamed’ mother for putting hands in pockets on Biden trip

Social media users said Seiji Kihara had bad manners and ‘more attitude than the prime minister’ but it was his mother’s comments that struck home

A senior aide to Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has apologised for putting his hands in his pockets during an official trip to the US, admitting that his mother had scolded him and told him she was “ashamed” of him.

Seiji Kihara, the deputy chief cabinet secretary, revealed on YouTube that his mother had read comments that he was “disgracing his parents” after he was caught with his hands in his trouser pockets as Kishida spoke to reporters outside Blair House in Washington.

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German minister says it ‘would not stand in way’ of Poland sending tanks to Ukraine

Annalena Baerbock makes clearest signal yet that European allies could deliver German-made hardware

Germany would not “stand in the way” of Poland sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine, foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has said, in what appeared to be the clearest signal yet from Berlin that European allies could deliver the German-made hardware.

Asked in an interview with French television LCI what would happen if Poland sent its Leopard 2 tanks without German approval, Baerbock replied through a translator: “For the moment the question has not been asked, but if we were asked we would not stand in the way.”

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Ten dead in shooting after lunar new year festival near Los Angeles

Deceased include five men and five women as police identify suspect as 72-year-old man who died of self-inflicted gunshot

Ten people were killed and at least 10 others hospitalized after a gunman opened fire in a ballroom dance studio on Saturday night in a city close to Los Angeles.

The mass shooting, one of California’s worst in recent memory, happened hours after a lunar new year festival that attracted tens of thousands of revelers in Monterey Park, a majority-Asian American city.

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Jair Bolsonaro accused of acts of genocide against Amazonian group

Brazilian president says predecessor emboldened wildcat miners which led to wrecked forests and disease and death among Indigenous people

Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has accused Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right administration of committing genocide against the Yanomami people of the Amazon, amid public outrage over a humanitarian catastrophe in the country’s largest Indigenous territory.

Lula visited the Amazon state of Roraima on Saturday to denounce the plight of the Yanomami, whose supposedly protected lands have been plunged into crisis by government neglect and the explosion of illegal mining.

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Huge protest in Israel over rightwing government’s judicial changes

Estimated 100,000 people took to streets in Tel Aviv in what protesters described as ‘fight for Israel’s destiny’

An estimated 100,000 people took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night in what protesters described as a “fight for Israel’s destiny” over sweeping judicial changes proposed by the new far-right government.

Israel’s longtime prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, returned to office last month at the helm of a coalition of conservative and religious parties that make up the most right-wing government in the country’s history.

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Justice department finds more classified documents at Joe Biden’s home

New search turns up six more items from tenures as vice-president and in the Senate

A new search of President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware by the US justice department found six more items, including documents with classification markings, a lawyer for the president said in a statement Saturday night.

Some of the classified documents and “surrounding materials” dated from Biden’s tenure in the Senate, where he represented Delaware from 1973 to 2009, according to his lawyer, Bob Bauer. Other documents were from his tenure as vice-president in the Obama administration, from 2009 through 2017, Bauer said.

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‘The Crocodile has not changed’: Zimbabwe opposition warns of election violence

Opposition leader Nelson Chamisa urges world to keep ‘eyes on’ President Mnangagwa amid fears of repression this summer

The leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party has warned of violence and repression by the ruling Zanu-PF party to ensure victory in elections scheduled for later this year.

In an interview with the Observer, Nelson Chamisa, president of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), called on the international community to have “eyes on” the struggling southern African country despite other crises around the world and to “offer solidarity” to those fighting for change there.

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Climate crisis and neglect threaten Spain’s saffron crop

Growers fear a perfect storm for a tradition that has long bound rural communities together

A sharp wind shunts clouds across the low and endless skies of La Mancha as Carlos Fernández stoops to pluck the last mauve flowers of the season from the cold earth. Their petals, which stain his index finger and thumb blue, enclose an almost weightless prize whose crimson threads are treasured in Spain and across the world.

But despite the prices his crop fetches, and the weighty comparisons those prices inevitably invite, the life of a saffron grower is not without its trials, travails and frustrations.

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People-smugglers ‘recruiting Russian captains for migrant boats to Italy’

Russians have replaced Ukrainians since the war began and at least 14 have been arrested in Italy, NGOs claim

People-smugglers are recruiting dozens of Russian citizens to replace Ukrainian sailors captaining boats carrying migrants from Turkey to Italy, NGOs have claimed.

Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine at least 14 Russian nationals have been arrested by the Italian police on charges of illegally transporting asylum seekers.

A report by the Italian non-governmental organisation Arci Porco Rosso and the nonprofit Borderline Europe “noted a doubling in the number of arrests of Russian citizens” accused of piloting the vessels compared with the previous year, as well as many more arrests of ‘‘Syrians, Bengalis, and even people from landlocked countries, such as Kazakhstan and Tajikistan’’.

The Turkey to Italy route was established by a criminal network of Turkish smugglers as an alternative to the long Balkans overland route to the EU, in part in response to pushbacks, typically using small fast yachts, most often stolen or rented. About 11,000 migrants arrived on the Italian coasts of Puglia, Calabria and Sicily in 2021 from the Turkish ports of Izmir, Bodrum and Çanakkale.

Initially the smugglers almost exclusively recruited Ukrainian skippers, many of whom had fled the country to escape military service during the war against Russian-backed separatists in Donbas. But since the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of Ukrainians recruited by Turkish smugglers has been decreasing.

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Landmark deals give Indigenous key role in Canada resource projects

YQT community signs unprecedented agreement with coal company giving Indigenous leadership ‘veto’ on proposed project

Two landmark deals in western Canada could reshape the role of Indigenous nations in resource development projects, placing greater power in the hands of groups that have long been excluded and signalling a possible shift in how industry and governments negotiate with communities on the frontlines of environmental degradation.

In recent years, a string of fierce battles over pipelines have put a spotlight on the fractious nature of resource extraction projects, often pitting First Nations communities against powerful companies.

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Lost photos from Warsaw Ghetto Uprising reveal horror of Jews’ last stand

Images found in attic taken by Polish firefighter who risked life to record how Jewish Poles fought the Nazis despite impossible odds

The photographs are blurry, composed hastily and taken surreptitiously, sometimes with heads or objects in the foreground obscuring part of the view.

But Holocaust historians say the imperfect pictures, discovered last month in a Polish attic decades after their creator died, are nonetheless priceless. They are the only known photographs from inside the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising not to be taken by Germans.

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Lunar new year brings China out from under pall of Covid

End of zero-Covid policy allows family gatherings and largest festivities since pandemic began

People across China have rung in the lunar new year with family gatherings and crowds visiting temples after the government lifted its strict zero-Covid policy, marking the biggest festive celebration since the pandemic began three years ago.

The lunar new year is the most important annual holiday in China. Each year is named after one of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac in a repeating cycle, with this year being the year of the rabbit. For the past three years celebrations were muted in the shadow of the pandemic.

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New Zealand: Chris Hipkins taking over from Jacinda Ardern on Wednesday

Sole nominee secures Labour endorsement for prime minister, with Carmel Sepuloni as deputy, and incumbent’s last engagements on Tuesday

Chris Hipkins will be New Zealand’s next prime minister following a formal vote that endorsed him as Jacinda Ardern’s successor after her shock resignation on Thursday.

New Zealand will also swear in its first ever Pasifika deputy prime minister, with social development minister Carmel Sepuloni, who is of Tongan and Samoan descent, to take the role.

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Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 333 of the invasion

Former UK PM Boris Johnson makes surprise visit to Ukraine; Russia claims to have made advances in Zaporizhzhia region

Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson has made a surprise visit to Ukraine, where he said that it was “the moment to double down and to give the Ukrainians all the tools they need to finish the job”. Downing Street said Rishi Sunak is “supportive” of Boris Johnson’s visit, despite warnings that it would undermine the current prime minister’s authority.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz, under pressure to allow the shipment of German-made tanks to Ukraine, said on Sunday that future decisions on weapons deliveries will be made in coordination with allies, including the United States. Scholz, when asked at a news conference about providing tanks to Ukraine, said that all weapons deliveries to Ukraine so far have taken place in close coordination with western partners.

French president Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday he does not rule out the possibility of sending Leclerc tanks to Ukraine. He was speaking at a summit with German chancellor Scholz.

The UK foreign secretary said the UK wants to see Ukraine equipped with Leopard 2 tanks. “I would like to see the Ukrainians equipped with things like the Leopard 2, as well as the artillery systems that they’ve been provided by us and by others,” he said. “I will keep having those conversations with our Nato allies and friends.”

Russia has claimed to have made advances in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region. After months of stalemate in the south-eastern region, Moscow-installed officials say the front is now “mobile” while the Ukrainian army reported that 15 settlements had come under artillery fire.

Talks between government representatives from France and Germany took place in Paris, as officials mark the 60th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty and the relationship between the two nations. It comes as the two countries seek to overcome differences exposed by differing attitudes about how the continent should proceed and whether Germany will agree to send tanks to Ukraine.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz promised that Germany will “continue to support Ukraine – for as long and as comprehensively as necessary”, adding: “Together, as Europeans – in defence of our European peace project.”

Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, criticised Germany’s failure to supply tanks to Ukraine. “Germany’s attitude is unacceptable. It has been almost a year since the war began. Innocent people are dying every day,” Morawiecki said.

An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that caution and slow decision making over whether to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine is costing lives. Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted on Saturday his frustration at “global indecision” over arms supply to Ukraine: “Today’s indecision is killing more of our people. Every day of delay is the death of Ukrainians. Think faster.”

Baltic countries have told Germany to send the tanks “now” to Ukraine after perceived heel-dragging by the government in Berlin. The Latvian foreign minister, Edgars Rinkēvičs, tweeted they are “needed to stop Russian aggression”. The same tweet was put out by his counterparts in Estonia and Lithuania.

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